


Not for what they are.

by skyfallat221b



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemons, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, His Dark Materials Inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:00:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfallat221b/pseuds/skyfallat221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint Barton can't commit to a kill order on Natasha Romanoff because the intel gathered on her turns out to be wrong, things rapidly take a different turn.<br/>Daemons, Dust, Zeppelins and armoured polar bears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Angel of Death and the Knowing Eye.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shenshen77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shenshen77/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for shenshen77, with whom I discussed His Dark Materials during a bored afternoon conversation. And, eventually, things snowballed, and this is turned out to become more than just a discussion. I promised her 20k, and this is just the first chapter in what I hope will finally reach a good length, because His Dark Materials crossed with Marvel? Hell yeah.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it. There will be a lot of references to the His Dark Materials books, even though I have tried to explain the concepts as best as I could for those unfamiliar with the books (or with the "Golden Compass" movie, for that matter). 
> 
> I will try to update every week (once or twice, it depends on my free time), and finish this as fast as possible. 
> 
> Again, happy birthday, dear! I hope you like it!

“And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone or that's an evil one because it hurts them. **People are too complicated to have simple labels.** ”   
― [Philip Pullman](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3618.Philip_Pullman),  _[The Amber Spyglass](http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1774510)_

* * *

 

Ofaëlia was uneasy. She hadn't stopped prowling around Clint's feet, restless, and her eyes hadn't stopped going back and forth between him and the doorway out – out to the target.

“Something's up.” Her voice didn't shake, it didn't even let a single tear of worry shine through, and yet Clint instinctively knew that there was something off.

“Fae, take it easy,” he replied, as he drew the bow back, attaching the string at the end of the string groove. “Your pacing is making me nervous,” he added, as he watched her finally give in and settle down next to him, one paw on his foot, claws out, as to make sure Clint wouldn't run off.

“I still think you should look through the file again, something isn't right,” she added, before looking down at the ground, raising her other paw and starting to lick it. Ofaëlia was a beautiful lynx, as Clint's daemon had settled as an animal with acute eyesight. Some people had thought that the animal would settle as a bird, like an eagle or a hawk, knowing Clint had loved to hide up high when he had been a kid, but as soon as he had run away from the orphanage, it had turned out that his soul hadn't wanted to fly but stay close to the ground and look out for trouble.

Letting go of the string as it settled in its place, Clint shook his head. “SHIELD told us the info was cleared,” he explained, more to soothe himself than his daemon. “She's taken down more members of the Magisterium than any other assassin, and they believe she comes from Siberiand,” he added, frowning, before taking pause, to look down at Ofaëlia. “You don't think they're hiding something from us, right?”

Shaking her head, the lynx licked her lips and readjusted her whiskers with the paw she had been taking care of before replying, her left ear pulling back to track a sound Clint hadn't picked up on yet. “They've had cases of Siberiand assassins before, and all those had cut daemons which made them dangerous,” she replied, as she turned her head to look towards the door. Something was happening outside, but Clint hadn't heard it yet. That tended to happen when people lost part of their hearing in a zeppelin explosion. Ofaëlia made up for the hearing loss by making sure nothing got past her.

“She's here,” she said, pushing herself onto all fours, before trotting to a chair, jumping up it, then up to the table, soundlessly, and up to the open window to look out. People outside were all accompanied by snow animals – leopards, foxes, rabbits, hares, even hermelins – and she felt in the right place. There were panserbjörne here, as well. Clint joined her by the window, bow hanging off his shoulder, the quiver against his hip filled with the 8 arrows he had been able to make on the trip over.

Usually, they both moved as one, taking separate ways to reach the same destination – they could follow each other, Clint being able to climb pretty well – but this time, they had decided that they would split up. As far as Ofaëlia could go without hurting Clint. That was the thing with daemons. If they hadn't been cut away – like splitting your soul in two – they couldn't go too far from their human counterpart. Spies and some other military organisations were making cutting daemons compulsory, but thankfully, Clint had always managed to dodge that horrible operation.

It was like cutting away the soul of one person. He'd seen it. They had done it to his brother, when he'd decided to quit the circus for the Magisterium. Or some factor of it, anyway. Clint wasn't sure. He decided to shake that thought, and went for the door as Ofaëlia jumped out of the window, and they both went their ways. Her, up, and up, and further up again, until he felt the pull in his heart, and then she went just a little bit further, as far as she could without having to cry out in pain.

Clint moved soundlessly too, moving between people covered in furs and hot clothes, their daemons trotting beside them, carrying them, or their daemons hidden underneath all the lining. He moved up to the rendez-vous point, where he knew their target would be. The orders were simple. Ofaëlia was to take down the bird that they knew was her daemon, and Clint would take action as soon as the assassin realized someone was onto her.

It was magnificent, really, the entire way she planned and executed her kills. The file said that she used public spaces to lure her kill in, and that none of her marks ever wondered if the black bird sitting high up in the tree was hers or someone else's. Nobody thought that a beautiful lady of the cold like her would have a raven black as coal for daemon, but it was true. She used the bird's ability to perch up high, stay out of sight, and pretended her daemon was just shy, and that it was hiding beneath her dress or under her scarf.

And when the mark's own daemon would crawl out or lie down to rest, the black bird would sway down on it, using its beak as a weapon, its claws as knifes, and when the howls or cries of the daemon died out with the bird of death choking it or poking out its eyes, the Black Widow would take out her mark with a swift movement.

She was magnificent. Clint had only seen one picture of her, that his colleagues in Bolvangar had managed to take when she was little, but he had heard of her beauty and of her skills.

Bolvangar, he thought, as he moved across a street, knowing Ofaëlia to be right next to him, just on the top of the roof instead of down on the ground next to him. Bolvangar, the place where intercision was practiced and discovered, where they used children to experiment on. All because of that thing called Dust.

Clint hated Dust. It had corrupted his father, to the point where it had broken his mind. 'Look at the orange rain flowing,' his father would call, would say, would yell, every now and then. Especially when he had been drinking. And, in the end, his father had forced his mother to follow him up a hill, to look at the orange flow of light being pulled towards something invisible, to the North. And on the way home, they had died. Nobody knew why.

But Clint, and his brother Barney, had known. Dust. It felt like a dirty drink to even say it, like he would be soiled if he even thought of it, and to know that the particles were the reason why scientists experimented on children – _children_ – in Bolvangar was enough to make him sick.

The archer finally reached the large space he was aiming for. A large tree, with deep roots that made waves on the surface, was still growing here in spite of the cold. He knew that nobody paid attention to his weapon – lots of hunters up here used a bow and arrow to hunt prey in the wild – but he knew that those who knew what to look for would recognize him. Especially if they saw Ofaëlia. He knew that their maimed left ear was a recognizable sign, and that's why he had chosen to hide it, with a high scarf.

Now it was just wait. Until _she_ came. Until the bird came. He couldn't talk to Ofaëlia, but he knew that she was ready to attack. She would jump from the roof onto the tree, onto the bird and use the surprise to divert her attention so he could loosen an arrow through her eye socket. It wasn't so much the killing part that bothered him. It was just... the file said she had been cut from her daemon. He had killed one such person before, and to see the daemon squirm and try to reach back to its counterpart had embedded itself in his head and memories.

Of all the things he had seen and experienced, someone who wasn't one with their daemon. That was the worst. He doubled his thumb within his hand, to keep away bad spirits. Witches' daemons could fly away as far as they wanted without being caused pain, but that was it. They were witches. The Siberiand assassins weren't witches. They were just... people without daemons. And it made his skin crawl.

* * *

He didn't need a signal. He saw the bird flutter down from above, black as coal against the falling snow, and he knew. He hadn't seen her yet, but he slowly pulled off the bow from his shoulder. He pulled an arrow from the quiver, and gently, quietly, put it down against the grip, resting against his hand, his eyes fluttering left and right, looking for her, any sign of her – her and her red hair. To his left, he heard someone laugh – a couple, it seemed – and he pulled back the string of the bow, ready to loosen. He saw them come up from a side alley, and with a quick glance up, he saw Ofaëlia's body on the edge of the gutter, ready to jump.

The bird didn't move one inch. The man's daemon was a large white mongoose, which seemed almost invisible against the snow on the ground.

For a couple of seconds, it felt as if the world was quiet. Entirely quiet. And that nothing, not even the falling snow, could break the silence and the calm.

And then, as Clint felt his shoulder arch, his back muscles tense up, as he pulled the longbow even more, the black bird suddenly disappeared down on the ground, and a loud shriek echoed through the air.

In a flash, he felt Ofaëlia jump from the roof onto the tree and down onto the bird which was otherwise occupied fighting the mongoose, and as soon as the lynx' paws tackled the birds beak and claws onto the ground, Clint heard a cry of pain. But it hadn't been the mark, the one with the mongoose, who was hurriedly crawling away, on all fours, all dignity lost.

Clint moved from the shadows, knowing that Ofaëlia had the situation under control – he couldn't feel her fear within him – and he loosened the arrow at the mark. The arrow embedded itself in the neck of the man, and the mongoose disappeared in a clowd of gold dust in the wind as the man huffed out his last breath.

Immediately, he pulled one of the other arrows and armed the bow, against the redhead, who had fallen to her knees and was holding her hands to her face.

Something was wrong. “Talk to me, girl,” he said out loud, as he came closer again, his arrow getting more and more threatening, the redheaded woman ignoring him and crying out in another language – was that Komi? - for her Angel of Death to be released by the Knowing Eye.

Clint felt his hand shake, and as the redhead let out a cry and the bird tried to move out from Ofaëlia's grip, he loosened an arrow, but it missed. It went straight into the tree, and he looked at her, as if she had just conjured a spell. He had missed her. Why? Something was wrong?

“She's still one with her daemon, you moron!” Ofaëlia growled, her mouth closing on the bird's beak to keep it still, and Clint pulled a third arrow from his quiver. This time, the redhead looked up at him, her eyes pleading.

“Please. Release him,” she pleaded, holding her hands down to her chest. Everything about this screamed wrong.

“He is hurting,” she said, her voice accentuated by her Siberiand inheritance. Not true, Clint thought. She comes from Bolvangar.

“You must release him,” she said, as the bird tried to move again, only to see the feline sit down on one of its wings. Not true, Clint thought. She's been cut, this is all a play.

“I promise not to hurt you,” she said, as the bird stopped fighting. Not true, Clint thought. She will kill you as soon as Ofaëlia lets the raven go. Just you watch.

And yet...

“There's only one way to figure it out,” Clint said out loud, as he slowly, cautiously, unhooked the arrow from the string, and put it back into the quiver. There was still nobody around them, as if the snow had swallowed all other life around them. The archer knew that the redhead knew what he meant.

There is only one way to know if a daemon is still connected to someone else. And it meant breaking every great taboo the entire world had about daemons. You cannot touch another person's daemon. It is forbidden in some countries, punishable by death in others yet. But Clint knew. Jacques and Buck had broken that taboo a thousand times in his youth to teach him a lesson, and every single time, it had felt wrong and disgusting, to have someone else's hands on Ofaëlia. He knew that the only way to make sure she wasn't lying was for him to touch the bird.

“Please,” she pleaded, but he shook his head. He didn't care if she was a brainwashed creature from the far north, he had to know. He had to be sure.

So, as he pulled a knife from under his fur jacket, just to show her that he would kill her if she tried anything, he moved closer to Ofaëlia, who was still keeping the raven still. Kneeling, gently, as the bird's eyes followed him, ever so scared, he put down one knee, then the other. And then, as Ofaëlia growled, feeling a claw rip at her stomach, Clint put down one hand on the bird's wing.

The shriek that came from the woman's mouth was enough proof that this was her daemon. Her daemon entirely. Not some cut away thing. Not make pretend. You couldn't fake this. You couldn't fake it, and Clint saw himself in her. All those times where the Swordsman and Trick Shot had held down Ofaëlia to teach him a lesson. All those times where his father had hit Ofaëlia or tried to catch her so he could get Clint to crawl out from his hiding place.

He saw himself reflected on the redhead's face.

The moment his hand left the feathers, he saw her eyes start glistening, and he knew that she was about to cry. So he decided against all the rules he had been given, and he put the knife back where it had come from.

“Please tell me you're not thinking what you're thinking,” Ofaëlia muttered, as she let go of the bird's beak to look at him, accusingly.

“Shut up,” he replied, as he pushed the bow against his foot, to unhook the string from the groove. He pulled the string completely off, and tested its strength. He was an idiot for not having brought rope, but it was going to have to do.

“Give me your hands,” he stated, not deigning send one look at the assassin's face. She obeyed, without as much as a word. She put her hands behind her back, and he tied them with the string of his bow. She obeyed, and she said something in that language of hers – definitely Komi, Clint recognized it now – so that when Ofaëlia let go of the bird to get a better grip of it at its neck, it wouldn't fight her.

“What is his name?” Clint asked, as he took her by the elbow, unwilling to let her walk in front of him. Ofaëlia was busy carrying the black bird so she couldn't scold him, but he felt her gaze on him.

“His name is Altair,” the redhead replied.

“And yours?”

“You don't even know my name?” she asked, and Clint shrugged.

“I want to know if you know your name,” he said, plainly, as he pushed her towards their hiding place. The extraction team would be there soon, he knew that they would send one of the bears to retrieve him and get him to the water, so he could get back to base and onto the zeppelin again. He didn't care.

“My name is Natalia,” came the answer, and Clint nodded.

“Good.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Clint,” Ofaëlia started, but Clint cut her off.

“Shut up, Fae. We're taking her in.”

“May I ask you why you think this is a good idea?” he heard his daemon say, through gritted teeth as she tried to keep the bird as uninjured as possible.

“Something was wrong with their intel. She doesn't deserve to die.”

He didn't like saying it out loud, but he knew it to be true. She hadn't been through the knife that would destroy the link between man and daemon. She hadn't been one of those assassins who had killed the founder of SHIELD. She hadn't been a brainwashed monster without a daemon who had been seen several times within the past century.

“We are gonna get in so much trouble,” Ofaëlia said as they passed the door to his safe house, and let go of the bird, which flew up to the redhead's shoulder and put it's beak against her cheek in a gentle embrace. Longing for Ofaëlia's touch suddenly burnt in Clint's heart, and as he put down the useless bow, he stroked the back of the catlike daemon, all the way from the tail up to the head, scratching her behind the ears.

“We'll see about trouble,” he murmured as he saw the redhead sit down in a corner. The bird hadn't said a word. It had cawed, and screamed, and shrieked, as much as a bird could. But it hadn't said anything at all.

And somehow, more than having disobeyed a direct kill order, Clint felt more uneasy because of the bird than because of the consequences of his actions. And he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and other sorts of feedback are appreciated. You can find me on tumblr at spectralarchers or just come nudge at me here.
> 
> Love you very much!
> 
> *
> 
> Clint's daemon - Ofaëlia - [Canadian Lynx](http://org.elon.edu/ncwildcat/nc-canadianlynx/images/canadianlynx4.jpg)  
> Natasha's daemon - Altair - [Forest raven](http://ibc.lynxeds.com/files/imagecache/photo_940/pictures/xcortas20578.jpg.pagespeed.ic.UfGKcN5D2P.jpg)


	2. Snakes, birds and lizards.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking in a deadly Siberiand assassin will have consequences. When faced with his handlers, Clint must face the butterfly effect of his insubordination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said that I would update Tuesday, but I managed to write a chapter yesterday and so here is the update! (I couldn't wait til tomorrow to post it. I'm too curious to see what you think!)  
> Shout out to scribaversutus, Blackhawkschild and maniachalcheetah968 for commenting. You're fab.  
> And I'm so happy you like it so far, Shen! :D I really hope I'm not going to let you down!
> 
> NB: I've put a descriptive of the daemons in this fic in the end notes so you can click their species to access a picture of them. 
> 
> NB²: All typos and mistakes are my own. I apologize for that.

“There was something wrong with the intel you got me,” Clint growled as soon as they reached the safety of the gyptian boat. His handlers hadn't been alerted by his disobedience of the order yet, and it was only safe to assume that they hadn't seen the panserbjörn holding the redhead assassin prisoner behind him. Yet.

“What do you mean? Explain yourself,” came the order. It had been Melinda May who spoke, not Phil Coulson. Both their daemons – Einaris, May's boa constrictor, and Sephronia, Coulson's beaded lizard – were watching him and Ofaëlia carefully, seemingly unaware of Natalia's and Altair's presence behind them.

Though they had been trained to not let their emotions show, Clint couldn't help but notice Ofaëlia's ears flickering back and forth. It was a habit when he was out of his comfort zone, that she would scan their surroundings for any danger – he couldn't hear perfectly, and she had to make up for it. Even though the two senior agents were there, with their equally dangerous daemons, along with an armoured bear, Ofaëlia still didn't seem to trust the Raven and the redhead.

Swallowing hard, locking his back and raising his chin, Clint looks straight ahead. Maybe some sort military response will help him get through this. He heard the ruffle of paddles on the water, though, and he turned his head to see they were letting go of the docks, making out to the zeppelin which had waterlanded somewhere off shore. The armoured bear would swim back when it had finished its duty here, he knew.

“She hasn't been subjected to the Silver Guillotine, ma'am,” was all he replied, his eyes drifting upwards. He heard Ofaëlia sigh, but didn't say anything. She was always right about everything, but even though he oftentimes acted reckless, she always agreed with him in the end. That's the thing about having your soul in animal form next to you, right?

Melinda's eyes finally seemed to take the armoured bear behind him into account, but the archer knew better than to think she hadn't noticed yet. Einaris' head moved up from her shoulder, as if to look at the black Raven sitting on the armoured bear's shoulder and the red assassin, who hadn't said one single word since he had decided to tie her hands with the string of his bow.

“Are you sure?”

Phil Coulson was a smart man, though he seemed more the kind of man to stay behind a desk than anything else. The lizard his daemon had settled as might have seemed innocent and naïve, a pretty thing to stroke, but its poison could cause respiratory failure, Clint knew. He'd seen his handler take down another agent by having Sephronia bite the agent's daemon.

Nodding, Clint let out a breath that he didn't know he had been holding. “I touched her daemon,” he started, and as soon as he mentionned, both the lizard and the snake in front of him started to hiss. Ofaëlia started growling protectively, arching her back to seem more imposing (though there was absolutely no doubt that if the boa tried to swallow her, it would).

“It felt wrong.”

Those three word fell as a final attempt to convince them that he had made the right decision. He saw Phil pick up his daemon to walk back inside, probably to send a message ahead to the zeppelin that they were arriving with an impromptu guest, and saw Melinda move closer to Natalia, the armoured bear unswayed by the presence of the senior agent.

As he watched her, Clint recalled the time where she had convinced him to join their agency. SHIELD. It felt strange, thinking back at it. He'd learnt later on that Coulson had supposed to be the one to bring him in, but after that Ofaëlia had almost cut off Sephronia's tail with her teeth and Clint had knocked the agent out cold with a hit to the back of the head, they'd sent in Melinda May and her boa. Ofaëlia had been so worried about Clint getting killed, shot or dying in any other way, that she hadn't heard the snake slithering close to her, striking her suddenly and starting to roll around her.

It had been efficient. Especially considering the consequences of the mission – Clint had been targeted by another agency, lead by Magisterium troops, after he had killed one of the headmasters in Salem University.

Turning his head, Ofaëlia staying close to his feet, he watched Melinda and Natalia lock eyes. The bird daemon, Altair his name was, cawed loudly at the snake which was smelling the air with its tongue. The two women didn't say anything for a long time. They didn't speak when Melinda put down Einaris on the arm of the armoured bear, for it to slither up to the bird and take a look at it. They didn't speak when Melinda moved so close that their foreheads almost touched.

Clint felt his heart racing. Sure, the bear would keep Natalia from attacking, but what if, somehow, the assassin made a move? She was bound to know the weaknesses of the armors, bound to know how to kill a bear. Clint knew. But only because one of those armored bears had been on the roster in the circus he had grown up in.

Suddenly, without any word, Melinda turned around, picked up Einaris from the bear's shoulder, and moved inside. Clint followed her as he heard Ofaëlia growling in her direction. The snake daemon looked over her shoulder and hissed. “Take her down under,” the order came. Usually, it was forbidden for daemons to speak to other humans than their own – something to do with restrictions – but in some rare cases, the daemon spoke more often than the human. Melinda was one of those cases.

“C'm'ere,” Clint muttered as he went to take the assassin by the crook of the elbow, the armoured bear moving back a step and releasing her. The black raven sat down on her shoulder, its blue eyes piercing Clint's gaze completely. As Clint moved towards the stairs down below deck, Ofaëlia stayed behind.

“Thank you for your services, Hjalmur Olvirsson. You are release from your duty to SHIELD and are free to rejoin your king on Svalbard,” she stated, inclining her head down as a mark of respect towards the bear. It nodded back, glancing one more time at the back of the two humans, before turning around, and jumping over the railing of the boat, down into the water, and making for the shore again.

Ofaëlia moved all the way to the railing to watch him for as long as she could, until she felt Clint pulling on her bond with her. The ship wasn't that big, but the manganese-titanium alloy they used for some of the holding cells was the same alloy Bolvangar used for intercision, and it messed with Dust enough to make them all edgy. Jumping down onto the wooden deck again, she moved swiftly, avoiding a seagull daemon from one of the sailors, the gyptians mastering the boat having a majority of water related daemons. She knew the captain of the ship had a beluga daemon, roaming around somewhere beneath the water.

How difficult it must be to never be able to touch each other. She longed for Clint's touch on her back, and pranced down the stairs, her ears alert. Clint was just closing one of the cells on Natalia and her devilish black daemon when she reached him. He moved down the hall, past the stairs, and she followed him in silence, until they reached their handlers office.

“You know, they're going to make you pay for this,” she muttered, as she pushed herself onto her hind legs, her claws settling on his clothing, so she could climb up into his arms. Bending forward, Clint sighed and picked her up. She started purring as soon as his rough hand started rubbing her head, right behind the ears.

“I know. At least May and Coulson seem more worried about the wrong intel than me disobeying their order,” he deadpanned, as she turned around in his grip, so he could rub her belly.

“I'm not worried about them, I'm worried about Fury and Adonia,” she said between two purrs, before her ears perked up, as she heard the footsteps on the other side of the door. She jumped down from his grip and sat next to him, pulling rank as he did.

“Agent Barton,” Melinda's voice started as soon as she pulled the door open, “Your insubordination has been reported to Level 7 and has been duly noted,” she moved so he could walk into the room. Coulson was sitting next to a transmitting device and writing down notes while Sephronia rested beneath a heat lamp, her eyes closed.

“You will report to Director Fury as soon as we reach the Helizeppelin, while we take care of the transfer of your prisoner. Is that understood?” she stated, her voice cold, as Clint nodded. Ofaëlia's ears moved left and right, trying to hear where Einaris was hidden, but as always, the snake daemon was too good at its job and was nowhere to be seen, or heard.

“Is that understood?” she repeated, as Clint didn't reply the first time. Clicking his heels together, he nodded.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Ofaëlia nodded too, her paws firmly set down into the floor, as she looked up at Melinda. They exchanged a glance, and Clint felt jealous of the silent communication between his handler and his daemon, but he knew that there were rules in being an agent. Especially one like him. Especially when he had just disobeyed a kill order and potentially compromised an entire operation.

Melinda nodded one time with her head, and he understood the signal. Get out. Phil looked up from his paperwork, and Sephronia opened her eyes to see them go, but Einaris was nowhere to be seen when Clint and Ofaëlia left the room.

* * *

 

“We are in so much trouble,” Ofaëlia stated, as soon as they reached the dock again. Clint needed the fresh air, she could feel it, and he needed to be able to see far. Dusk had slowly crept over them, and it seemed as if the night would swallow them whole. The gyptians near them ignored him, for the most part anyway.

He hummed instead of replying, resting his shoulders against the railing of the ship, looking down at the waves crashing against the hull. There was undoubtedly a seal and a beluga down there, racing to see which could go fastest. Jumping up onto the railing in a steady leap, Ofaëlia sat down on it. She wouldn't fall into the water, she had done this loads of times. Still, some of the gyptians felt uneasy. If she fell into the water at the speed they were rowing, Clint would probably be better off jumping into the water too.

That's because they didn't know how far they could stretch their bond. And yet... Clint hummed again, and he tried to locate the zeppelin in the distance. A light flickering across the horizon indicated the airship, and he started drumming his fingers on the wood.

“If you're not going to say it, I'll say it,” his daemon started, as her ears flickered to the side, ignoring the curious looks of a mouse daemon. “Not killing her was a mistake. You should have taken the shot,” she stated, matter of factly. “We have never done this before, and I'm as much responsible for the decision as you were, I know. But in the end, you should have killed her. Not asked for her name. Or his, for all that matters,” she said.

There was this thing where daemons knew about their daemon things and humans knew about their human things, and there was definitely something off with Altair. However, she would never admit it to Clint. His drumming persisted, and to stop him, she put on paw onto his forearm. When he looked down from the horizon and onto her, she saw that he had that sad look on his face again.

“You can't save everybody, Clint.”

When she said it like that, Clint hated it. He hadn't been able to save his parents. He hadn't been able to save his brother. He hadn't been able to do it. And she had been there, always, to support him, and to help him through the hardship of losing an entire family. He knew that she was right. He couldn't save everybody.

“I know, Fae, I just- I just couldn't take the shot.” He paused, as he closed his eyes, rubbing them with his free hand, as he suddenly felt tired. He hadn't even changed clothes. “She was supposed to be this free from shame killing machine and she wasn't.” He paused again, opening his eyes. “She wasn't.”

“Saying it twice won't make it real,” his daemon replied, but she knew. It wouldn't make it real, but it sure as hell helped him figure it out. Why had he swayed? Why hadn't he killed her? Something had happened, and he wasn't sure what that thing was.

* * *

 

They both heard the flutter of Adonia's wings before they saw Fury. They'd boarded the airship without a single word uttered, leaving Natalia in the hands of their handlers.

“Morons!” the bird cawed at them, as Ofaëlia felt the bite of its claws against her back. Nick Fury wasn't the sort of man to say a lot, but his daemon knew how to state things when they felt something had been wrong. And in this case, the fact that the great horned owl had attacked the lynx without a single word but the word 'moron' in mind... Well, it didn't bode well.

Clint moved to the desk, standing in front of it, waiting to be invited to sit down should the offer present itself. Ofaëlia jumped up into one of the chairs, to be at same level, while the owl yelled more names at them, before settling down on Fury's left shoulder. It was missing one eye, just like Fury wore an eyepatch. Injury on the daemon equals injury on the human, and vice-versa. Clint knew that all too well, what with his maimed ear.

“May and Coulson tell me you disobeyed an order, Barton,” Fury stated, more calmly, as the daemon's eye fluttered from Clint to Ofaëlia and back.

“Hah, more than that, he brought the target home with his bow string as rope, talk about disobeying an order,” Adonia cackled, as she unfolded her wings sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Fury said, and the bird immediately obeyed, shutting up and folding its wings. Though its eye remained on Ofaëlia while Fury spoke up again.

“I don't know if I should be disappointed in you or if I should be proud of you for realizing the intel gathered by our teams was wrong,” the director started, as Barton's eyebrows moved closer to one another. “You successfully took in one of the world's most renowned assassins without a hush, and managed to get her to cooperate with your handlers.” There came a pause, in which only a slow hoot from Adonia's part was heard.

“Now, I don't know what you were expecting, but there will be consequences,” the director continued, looking down at the paperwork in front of him. Mission reports, details about the dead mark, panserbjorne salary, etc. “While I am ready to take in a new asset, I will not risk her taking this organisation apart. You will be appointed to her monitoring every single fucking step of the way, up until I can be alone in the same room as her without fearing for my life. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” Clint replied, as Ofaëlia nodded.

“You're a fucking moron,” Adonia added, though, as Clint's eyes moved to her. It was always strange to hear her speak, as Fury's voice was so authoritative and she sounded high pitched and strange. Like she had seen too many things in her life. “We will know what she does every single second of every single hour of every single day,” the bird added, talking mostly to Ofaëlia than Clint, although the conversation was directed at him too. Fury cut the daemon off.

“You brought her in. Either you turn her around so she can become an asset to SHIELD, or you kick her out of the door. Preferably in a body bag.”

The last sentence felt wrong, but Clint knew it was necessary. If he couldn't take care of Natalia and make her see the light, he was going to have to complete his initial mission at some point. The owl hooted again, a sarcastic laugh. As if she knew what Clint was thinking.

“Ofaëlia, make sure your human doesn't fall for the Siberiand charms,” Fury added, talking directly to the lynx instead of the human. Ofaëlia jumped from the chair onto Fury's desk and sat down right in front of him, ignoring Clint's inner worry of such an action. She bared her fangs at him, protecting her human, even though she knew that Adonia could peck out her eyes in a matter of seconds.

“Don't think this wasn't a joint decision. If he falls for her, I will fall for her too. If you want her monitored by someone unphased by her skills of seduction, send in Agent Drew and Ossiande. I'm sure they will know exactly how to deal with a defector,” the lynx growled, her claws settling into the wooden table. At first, Clint held his breath. He hadn't seen his daemon talk to Fury like that often, and the fact that she took the initiative of suggesting Jessica in front of him was mind boggling.

Fury's eye moved from Ofaëlia to Clint, and, against all odds, he smiled at him. “You've got quite the daemon there, Barton. I'm always surprised at how stubborn the two of you are. There is no mistake that you share a soul.” He pushed himself back, Adonia taking flight to peck at Ofaëlia's ear, before settling over on a bookcase, her back turned and head raised high, as if she was above all that silly chitchat.

“If I hear one single feedback that this redheaded assassin of yours might have compromised you, I will send in Agent Drew to terminate her, and assess you before possibly terminating you. Are we understood?”

There wasn't very much to misunderstand. Turn Natalia over to their side, kill her, or be killed. Simple. But Nick Fury wasn't the type of person to take any sort of chances, and Clint knew fully well what he was getting into. Nodding, he felt Ofaëlia rubbing herself against his legs to show him support.

“Understood.”

“You're dismissed,” the director ordered, as he moved to the door, opening it for his agent, and watched him walk out, and down the corridor, followed by his Canadian lynx.

“Adonia, what has he gotten himself into?” he asked, as he closed the door.

“Dunno. But Einaris says that the redhead hasn't said anything yet and he doesn't think she will be a risk. Not yet, anyway. Might be a sleeper program in her that will allow us to trust her-”

“And then, when we let her sleep with us, eat with us, go on missions with us, she will betray our trust and slit our throats before we know what happened,” Fury finished. The owl hooted, before settling down on the pen he had been writing with. He sat down on the chair and rubbed his temple.

“This world is too complicated sometimes,” he muttered, as he stroked his daemon gently.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of the daemons appearing in the fic (well... the important ones, anyway):
> 
> Clint's daemon - Ofaëlia - [Canadian Lynx](http://org.elon.edu/ncwildcat/nc-canadianlynx/images/canadianlynx4.jpg)  
> Natasha's daemon - Altair - [Forest raven](http://ibc.lynxeds.com/files/imagecache/photo_940/pictures/xcortas20578.jpg.pagespeed.ic.UfGKcN5D2P.jpg)   
> Melinda's daemon - Einaris - [Red tailed boa constrictor](http://www.reptilestogo.com/PhotosSnakes/Colombian%20Boa%20Constrictor,%20Bone-Saddle%20baby%20660.jpg)  
> Phil Coulson's daemon - Sephronia - [Mexican beaded lizard](http://www.animalfactguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/beaded-lizard-detail.jpg)  
> Nick Fury's daemon - Adonia - [Great Horned Owl](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Bubo_virginianus_06.jpg/640px-Bubo_virginianus_06.jpg)
> 
> Let me know what you thought of the chapter? :D


	3. When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disobedience has consequences. Touching another person's daemon has consequences.  
> Maybe not exactly the ones Clint was expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SO SO SO SO SORRY FOR THE TIME IT TOOK TO UPDATE THIS!  
> I got my mojo back! And I am ready to finish this!  
> I hope you're ready too?! :D

The wait felt like an eternity. Pacing in his quarters, Clint couldn't stay still. Worse yet, Ofaëlia was leaving claw marks over all the wooden furniture she could get her paws on. Usually, Clint would have asked her to leave it alone, but he was too worried. He kept thinking about what he had done – disobeyed the mission, the kill order – and what the consequences would be. He knew Fury was angry with him, but it was even worse with May and Coulson.

Walking back and forth, he paced again, and again. He kept fiddling with the string of his bow, not wanting to put it away. They had given him the string as soon as Natalia had been pushed into a cell, and he had watched it as it held the secrets to her condition. If only he could see the dust right now!

“We could go up on the dock, see if the light reveals anything unusual,” the lynx spoke, and Clint turned around to look at her. He'd pulled off the furs that had kept him warm during his wait and the mission, and was wearing a wooly shirt, the laces in the front untied. He hadn't bothered when he had pulled the sweaty outfit off.

“I don't think the moon will reveal anything. There's something that I am missing here, and it annoys me.”

“No shit,” he scowled at her, before heading towards the bowl of water he had supplied himself with as he came down. Ofaëlia let go of the floorboard she had started working on, and swiftly and elegantly jumped up on a chair and onto the table, getting closer to the water too. Plunging his hands down into the icy water, Clint pulled them up again as he flushed his face. He felt Ofaëlia shake her head as the water rippled onto her, and she bent forward to take a lick at it, her ears flat against her head, listening onto conversations outside the room.

“What're they talking about?” Clint asked, and she looked up, licking her mouth. Her ears flicked, and as she turned her head, Clint poured some of the water onto his back, not caring if the shirt would get wet.

“About her. About her daemon. They don't know what he is, or why he isn't speaking.” Ofaëlia looked up at him, with that same intensity Clint's brother had had. Barney used to have a daemon which had settled as a donkey – a lot of people had made fun of this, but it had turned out to be a useful form. Especially in Barney's line of work.

That is, until he had been separated by his donkey, Bronwyn. Clint had never been told the exact events and the exact unfolding of protocol, but he had heard from his brother in a letter, sent by airmail with a pigeon.

“Fae, tell me he told you something. Or you felt something?” he tried again, and when he saw her tail going from one side to the other, he knew it was no use. He could read her as much as she could read him, and he had absolutely no clue of what was going to happen now. And in truth, it terrified him. (He would rather have been beaten in the stocks at midday rather than sit here and wait for the final judgement).

Ofaëlia backed up from the bowl and moved closer to the door, making it all the way up to the small opening that lead out to the corridor, peering out. Her eyesight was keen and her hearing was even better. Clint would never forgive himself for getting caught in that explosion, but thankfully, his missing hearing in one ear was of no importance for missions. Ofaëlia's tail was flickering from one side to the other. He grabbed the longbow, and pulled the string on, forcing the long piece of wood into shape as he resumed walking left, and right, and left-

“There is a daemon once, in the Magisterium, who doesn't speak,” Ofaëlia started, and that immediately stopped Clint in his tracks. “A golden monkey, for a lady with black hair and one of the prettiest faces I have ever seen.” She turned her head around, as she adjusted herself on her four legs in the opening, one ear still tilted to the side so she could still pick up conversations.

Somewhere far away, she could hear Natalia's voice, whispering things to her daemon, Altair, but not once did the raven reply. It just croaked and cawed. But it never spoke.

“Why doesn't the monkey speak?” Clint asked. He wasn't familiar with the Magisterium, coming from the land across the big pond, and he didn't have much experience with religion and Dust. Just what he knew from personal experience.

“Nobody knows. Some say that it's because she got her heart broken and so he refuses to speak. Some say it's because it lost the ability to speak when she lost her daughter.” Ofaëlia's head moved again, tilting slightly to the side as her front paws securing their grip, outing her claws. “Something's happening. They're calling people up on deck.”

Pulling the bow across his chest, securing it and grabbing the last arrows he had, Clint headed for the door. But, before he could touch the handle, Ofaëlia had jumped down in front of him and was showing her teeth.

“No, don't,” she hissed, as her tail flicked again. “Don't go outside. Something's happening.”

“Do I need to keep my bow or should I go for the knife?”

“The knife. Take the knife,” she replied, as she turned around again, jumping elegantly to the side as footsteps echoed in the corridor. She hid herself in the shadow of the wall, and Clint did the same, crouching, ready to leap. The voices outside grew louder.

“Take Barton, we need him in containment. We don't know what the status is, but the readings are off the charts. The moment he touched her daemon, Dust radiation spiked around him.”

And, as soon as Jasper Sitwell's voice outside fell silent, Clint knew that they would knock the door off its hinges. The loud bang came as expected, and three SHIELD agents waltzed into the room, their own weapons at the ready, their daemons immediately on the alert – there was a hound, a wolf and a Tasmanian devil. Clint leaped onto the closest one as Ofaëlia jumped down onto the devil's back, her claws sinking into the skin almost immediately.

Clint's knife sliced at the agents chest and stomach, cutting through the clothing as if it was butter, and he was onto the second one when he suddenly felt and heard Ofaëlia whine out loud. The third agent grabbed his air and forced him to turn around, as he let go of the knife. Any and all threat to a daemon and he knows protocol is to let go.

He saw Sitwell holding out the flask in which he carried his daemon, ready to spill it out over Ofaëlia, who was beind held down by both the hound and the wolf.

“You bastard!” Clint shouted, as the agent screwed the flask shut again. The jellyfish that he carried inside his pocket, in the tiny little flask, was one of the most dangerous jellyfish in the world. Muscle cramps, pain in the back, a burning sensation... Clint had felt those effects almost first hand the first time Sitwell had used Adara's sting on Ofaëlia, and he did not want to repeat it.

“Now, now, be nice, Agent Barton,” the other agent sneered, as Clint surrendered by letting his weight down and letting the tension in his muscles out. Ofaëlia sneered again, but retracted her claws almost at the same time as Clint, and soon, they were both escorted out of the room as Sitwell explained the situation. “We have discovered that your supposed target, Natalia Romanova, has been giving off Dust radiation. We don't know what it means yet, but the members of the Magisterium on board saw a larger flow of Dust coming from Ofaëlia down here, almost the same way as Miss Romanova's daemon seemed to glow.”

Silent, Clint didn't even feel the need to argue. Ofaëlia's head was hanging low, showing submission to the larger wolf by her side, and to the hound on the other. Clint knew exactly what she was thinking – goddamned dogs. Those idiot, silly, loyal things. She hated them. Clint did too. But he never said a word about it.

“We are to conduct some tests, meanwhile, you and your new redheaded friend will remain in containment, to avoid any and all spread of this contamination.”

Sitwell's voice bore through Clint's heart. No. Not containment. He had hated it the first time he had been in there – still young, still fierce, still a rebel at heart, thinking the entire world was after him – and he did not want to go back in there. Ofaëlia had stopped in her tracks too, stopping their procession.

“Why containment?” Clint asked, his voice dry. He swore to himself that he wouldn't let the two soldiers flanking him feel or see that he was shaking. He wasn't sure if he succeeded.

“Because,” Sitwell turned around to look him dead in the eye. The flask with the jellyfish had disappeared in a pocket somewhere. “You are one of our best assets, and we don't want to terminate you if we can stop the spread.”

Well, that was putting it mildly. And, when the agent turned around, the two soldiers pushed at Clint, and they all got moving again. No. Why? He didn't want this.

They had pulled his longbow off him, broken the arrows and thrown them in the room of the boat. They were getting out, up the stairs onto the dock now, and he saw that Natalia was being brought up to the Helizeppelin now and that he would soon be joining her. He didn't want to. He had wanted to go back to his quarters up there, but not the containment and isolation ones.

“No, please,” he pleaded, as Ofaëlia's head sank even lower, but Sitwell ignored him. He saw Fury, May, Coulson, and their daemons, standing to the left of their procession. Their looks betrayed their worry, and he didn't know why they looked so inherently sad – was it that bad? Was he going to die? What did he do? He had touched other people's daemons before, but never this way!

“Fury! Do something, I don't-” but before he could finish the sentence, a punch to the stomach had him keeling forward, and almost falling to his knees. He made his way back to a standing position, his eyes meeting Ofaëlia's, and she nodded at him. If she felt confident they would make it through, then they would. He followed the path up, and when they reached the steep stairs, he picked up his daemon, as he was expected to, and started to climb.

If he jumped, he would be shot. If he didn't climb, he would be shot. There was no way out of this alive, and so, as he pulled his body higher and higher up the rope, Ofaëlia's claws digging into his skin, he thought about what was happening.

“I think that's why they wanted to kill her,” Ofaëlia's voice suddenly interrupted him, and he almost missed the next step. He grasped the rope, steadying himself.

“Fae, you can't just say something like that!” he growled, as he kept on moving further up. One day, he was going to have to go up the other way, the lazy way, but he knew that it was how SHIELD tested their agents. If you couldn't make the climb up, you weren't qualified for field work. Suddenly, he thought of the wolf and hound daemon, and wondered how the hell those agents got those up.

Ofaëlia dug her claws into his shoulder to grab his attention again. “I'm telling you. Something's off with her, and they don't want us to find out. Remember they said it was a kill mission from the start, before they gave us the intel?” she whispered, her eyes and ears picking up all that he wasn't. He had broken a sweat, and had made it a little more than halfway up.

If he slipped now, he would either die by hitting the boat, or he would die because of the missing impact on the water front.

“I don't- think- this is- a good- idea,” he managed to get out, as he felt his heart race in his chest. He didn't want to go all the way up. He just wanted to let go. Maybe none of this was important. But then he remembered the look of horror on Natalia's face as he had touched the bird daemon, and the filthy feeling of breaking the private bond between daemon and human.

Ofaëlia's tail curled up around his throat and neck, something that soothed him when he was making an effort. “Let's just make it up there, okay?” she said, and the way she said it reminded Clint of his mother. He couldn't remember her much, but Ofaëlia did. She remembered Edith Barton's pig daemon too, Adrastos. “If we make it up, then we'll figure out what's going on.”

And with that, Clint pulled himself further up, feeling the effort burning in his arm and back muscles, every next step an effort as he pulled himself up.

Ofaëlia leaped off his shoulder the moment they were high enough and close enough to the platform, and when Clint expected a hand to help him up, nothing came. Looking up, he saw Ofaëlia's head gesturing a no, and as she backed up, he eased himself onto the platform. If his heart could beat any faster, he'd be dead. As soon as he was lying on his back, however, a kick to his hip had him moving again.

And with that, he headed down to the containment level, unawares of what was happening and why he was suddenly being quarantined.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed it. It's not nearly as long an update as the previous two chapters, but I'm still figuring out where to go (what I had planned in the first place no longer seems to inspire me, so I'm just going as it comes for now). I really hope you enjoyed it!  
> Let me know? :D
> 
> Yet again, here is the list of all daemons in the chapter:
> 
> Clint's daemon - Ofaëlia - [Canadian Lynx](http://org.elon.edu/ncwildcat/nc-canadianlynx/images/canadianlynx4.jpg)  
> Natasha's daemon - Altair - [Forest raven](http://ibc.lynxeds.com/files/imagecache/photo_940/pictures/xcortas20578.jpg.pagespeed.ic.UfGKcN5D2P.jpg)   
> Barney's daemon - Bronwyn - [Regular Donkey](http://holebrookfarm.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/minature-med-donkeys-dartmoor.jpg)  
> Sitwell's daemon - Adara - [Irukandji Jellyfish](https://41.media.tumblr.com/00048ffeb9b2855a8a06c555bf185a5d/tumblr_mlrnfku4bd1qkvy4so1_500.jpg)  
> 


End file.
